


The Ways of the Universe

by Melandra



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:54:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melandra/pseuds/Melandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trip to Accident and Emergencies has unexpected results...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ways of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hesychasm (Jintian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jintian/gifts).



They had always meant to keep in touch.

To start with, the messages went between them quite regularly. But O’Brien wasn’t much of a letter-writer, and words could never quite express how he missed spending an hour or so at Quark’s bar, chatting or playing darts. As for Bashir, he tried to describe how he’d invited Ezri to try his favourite holosuite programmes, but he’d given up after her giggles and questions just got too much for him. 

They’d made plans to meet up when Julian had been invited to a medical convention at Starfleet headquarters, but that weekend O’Brien had been called away to an engineering emergency with the fleet . Bashir had suggested a camping trip on Risa, but then he’d had to cancel, after a crisis on a visiting ship had left him with a full medical bay. A fleeting visit from O’Brien back to the station had coincided exactly with Bashir having to head through the wormhole. They’d spoken, regretfully, over the comms channel, but it was not the same.

And gradually the messages grew fewer, the letters less frequent. Life settled down, they made new friends, day followed day and, although they never actually forgot each other, it got so that Julian could spend a day in the holosuites without thinking of his friend, while O’Brien headed for the nearest bar for a quick pint after work without thinking sadly about the doctor. So the years, life, and their careers, moved on…

 

“Dad !” Yoshi raced into the kitchen area, throwing down a bag on the counter and grabbing a piece of fruit. “Dad ! Can we go to the low-gravity gym this weekend ? Greg and Alex went last week and I really want to. Please ?” 

Molly trailed after him, sighing audibly. “Dad, please don’t,” she said. “He’ll only break something. And then Mum will be cross again.”

Miles O’Brien looked at his children, and wished, all over again, that life was not so complicated. When had Molly gone from being a bright and enthusiastic child to a moody teenager, who wanted to be anywhere else than her father’s house ? As for her young brother, he was a daredevil who needed careful watching. He’d broken his arm on their last camping excursion, and cracked three ribs while playing baseball. Keiko sent them off every other weekend with their bags and a list of their clothes, avoiding meeting her ex-husband whenever she could. The split had been acrimonious, with recriminations flying in all directions. 

He took a deep breath. “All right. Put your things away, and give me the lists so I can tick them off before you go home on Monday. Yoshi, yes, we can go to the gym. But no broken noses or ribs this time, please. And Molly, stop sighing. Pick something you want to do, and we’ll sort it out. OK, kids ?” Miles put down his bag and looked from one face, shining and happy, to the other, pretty despite the sulky looks. 

The zero-grav gym was packed, and Yoshi was soon in the thick of things. And even Molly seemed to be relaxing and having fun. Miles smiled to himself. At last, he was actually getting himself sorted out. Work was good, the kids were getting used to the split and were settling down… perhaps he hadn’t made such a mess of his life after Deep Space Nine after all.

And then he heard a scream.  
Of course, it was Yoshi. It was always Yoshi.

“I told you he’d hurt himself’” Molly said angrily afterwards. She looked up at her father, accusingly. But her eyes were full of tears. “Dad, he will be okay, won’t he ?”  
Miles nodded, but bit his lip.

The medical centre next to the Academy building was the closest. The blue uniforms were familiar and soothing, and Miles hurriedly gave Yoshi’s details to the receptionist, reluctantly leaving the eerily still figure in a cubicle.

When he returned to the room, a slender figure was examining Yoshi, dark head bent over a tricorder, lights flashing. For a strange moment he could have been back on Deep Space Nine; a wave of homesickness swept over him. What wouldn’t he give to be back there, back when things made sense, when he had Keiko, when they were a family, when he had Julian… Julian… “Julian ?”

‘Yes ?’ The figure in medical blue turned round. And promptly dropped the tricorder, his brown eyes huge in his tanned face, stunned.

“Julian ?” Had he spoken out loud ? Miles was rooted to the spot, his heart pounding, his ears ringing. “Julian ? Is it really you ?”

“Miles ? Chief ?” Bashir looked quickly back at his patient. “Yoshi ? Is this Yoshi ? It can’t be !”

“It’s been a few years,” Miles said, hurrying over to the medibed. He squeezed Bashir’s arm. “You can’t imagine how pleased I am to see you here. There’s no-one I’d prefer to trust with my son.”

Julian gave a small smile, but took the tricorder the nurse passed him. “I’ll do my best, Miles, “ he said, running the instruments over the boy, examining the readings. He smiled as Yoshi moved slightly. 

“Dad ?” Yoshi opened his eyes and looked up, slightly dazed. “Dad, I’m sorry. Dad, I won’t be in trouble with Mum, will I ?”  
Miles leant down and took his hand. “No, son. Don’t worry about it. I’ll sort it out with her. And Dr Bashir is here to look after you. And there’s no-one better. After all, he’s the one who brought you into the world.” Miles gave Julian a smile, and was rather surprised to see the guarded, almost haunted look in the doctor’s eyes.

Julian kept his eyes on the patient, and continued the examination, before turning back to Miles. “Right, we have a broken tibia, fibula, collarbone and two cracked ribs,” he said, his face solemn. “But what is worrying me, is that Yoshi should break bones so easily in a perfectly normal gym situation. I’ll set the auto-heal right away, and my assistant here will use the dermo-seal on the various abrasions. He’ll be ready to leave in around an hour. But I really think we should also run some tests to see if this is something more than clumsiness.”

Seeing the look of panic on Yoshi’s face, O’Brien squeezed his son’s hand. “You don’t really think that is necessary, do you ? I know he’s had a few fractures, but he’s just an accident-prone kid.” He ruffled Yoshi’s hair. “You’ll take more care next time, won’t you, Yoshi !” He grinned at Julian, but still looked puzzled. “Thank you , Julian – although I just can’t work out what you’re doing here.”

The doctor swung round to face him. Quite naturally, he looked older, but more than that, he looked different, worn out, as if he’d lost every last vestige of that over-enthusiastic, bouncing youngster he’d first known on Deep Space Nine.

Julian smiled, and his velvet brown eyes seemed, for a brief moment, to light up. “Let me get Yoshi back together again, and then we can talk. OK ?”

Miles was about to reply when he had a nudge from behind. “Dad ? Mum’s on her way,” Molly said, slightly apologetically.

“You told her ?” Miles swung round. 

She shrugged, tears in her eyes. “I wanted to talk to her, Dad. I was scared…”

Miles put an arm out and hugged his daughter, wondering where he’d gone wrong over the years. “It’s OK. That’s perfectly normal – and she had to know sooner or later. When does she get here ?”

“About forty-five minutes. Dad, you’re not going to argue with her, are you ?” Molly asked. 

“No. But I would imagine that in a very few minutes after your mother arrives, she will whisk you both off to the Hydroponic Facility and your weekend with me will be over. “

 

“So what happened between the two of you ?” Julian asked, having witnessed the whirlwind of Keiko O’Brien reclaiming her children – a reluctant and repentant Molly, and a newly-repaired Yoshi – and left in a waiting shuttle for her lab, insulting her husband, his family and the whole male gender in the process.

Miles sighed and looked around. “It’s a long, long story, and none of it pretty,” he said. “But what about you ? What are you, one of Starfleet’s leading doctors, doing in an accident and emergency department at the Starfleet Academy medical centre?”

Julian gave a short, bitter laugh. “Another long story. Would – would you have time to swap tales of woe ? Catch up a bit ?”

Miles shrugged. “Well, as my weekend with the kids has been brought to an early end, it sounds perfect to me. “

“I have a holosuite booked for eight. Why not meet me there ? It’ll be – be quite like old times.”

“The Alamo or the Battle of Britain ? I don’t know where my costumes are…” Miles asked with a grin.

“Neither. Just come as you are. It’ll be nice.”

 

When O’Brien walked into the holosuite, it was like walking back in time. The sound of the dabo tables, the noisy background sound – well within Quark’s preferred decibel range – and Morn by the bar. And Quark himself behind the bar. “Well, Chief, what’ll it be,” the Ferengi said with a sharp-toothed smile.

And Miles laughed, seeing Julian in his old uniform perched by the bar. “Quark’s ! Well, I never thought I’d see this again,” he laughed. “How long did this take you to do ?”

Julian shrugged. “I’ve rather had a lot of time on my hands recently. Come on, grab a drink and let’s sit down.”

So, taking a pint from the pseudo-Quark, Miles sat down in a strangely familiar chair. “Go on, then. What’s been going on, Julian ? Last I heard from you, you were being feted as a genius and talking about getting married to Ezri Dax.”

“That seems so long ago,” Julian sighed. “Miles, I missed you so much, when you left the Station.”

“Don’t change the subject !” But seeing Julian’s face fall, he relented. “I missed you too. I mean, I was pretty busy, with Keiko and the children, as well as settling into our house and starting teaching. But I did miss you.” He paused for a moment, as he remembered that time. “I’d grown so used to having you around. Suddenly there was no-one to do anything with. You… you can’t just find someone to do things with. And definitely not someone you click with . As we did.”

“We didn’t click to start with,” Julian said with a laugh. “I remember the way you looked at me, that first time we went off together in a runabout. It wasn’t even that you just found me annoying, you actually hated me, admit it !”

“OK, I admit it. I could cheerfully have strangled you, once or twice. Julian, you were like a puppy dog! Into everything, everyone. Following people around, so desperate for attention. And you never stopped talking…”

He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Poor Jadzia. It’s amazing that she didn’t slap me. I must have driven her crazy. And Garak ! I really led him on…”

Led Garak on ? Miles narrowed his eyes, wondering what exactly the doctor meant. But he wanted to get back to the story. “So, you were saying you missed me ?”

“Oh, I tried, Miles. I thought I loved Ezri. No, I did love her ! She was so sweet, so perfect. I really expected my life to slot into place, you know. Marriage, children… But there was just something… there was always something missing. And instead on working on our relationship, I let myself get distracted by work. Longer and longer hours in the lab or the surgery. I was looking for more honours, and I set up a project…” He went quiet, turning the glass round and round in his hands.

“Tell me, Julian,” Miles said, strangely aware of a wish to scoop the doctor into his arms and hug him.

“Well, Ezri got promotion, and Starfleet offered her a really good position on a ship. She spent a while debating whether to take it or not. Looking back, I realise that she wanted me to ask her not to go, to make a commitment to her. But I hardly even noticed. I just threw myself into my work even harder. I… I came up with this idea. I wanted to show that genetic enhancement was no crime. That it could actually help people. There was this little girl on the station … she reminded me of Molly, a bit.” He sighed, tears welling up in his eyes. “Miles, it all went wrong. And when the Medical Council found out…. It was awful. I knew I’d blown all chances of ever getting anywhere with my career. But the worst part was that I knew I was to blame. It was my arrogance, my confounded assuredness that no matter what challenge faced me, I could cope. Well, this time, I didn’t. They demoted me, decided it was time that I left the Station. And, you know, I deserved it. I just had to get away. To… to somehow pay things back, to make up for what I’d done. So I came back to Earth, went back to basics. I’m working all the hours I can, mainly in the labs, but when they kick me out, I go and help out in the emergency department. Any spare time, I come here…”

“And you try to recreate the station, where you were happy,” Miles said softly. “Julian, I’m so sorry.” He reached out and took the doctor’s hand, squeezed it comfortingly. 

Julian looked up at him, his eyes suspiciously bright. “Oh well, it keeps me busy. And at least I’m useful. There are never too many doctors. “ He smiled. “But I do miss that frontier medicine,” he said. “And I can’t help being lonely.”

Miles took a long drink. It seemed such a waste that a doctor of Bashir’s skills was setting bones and mending minor ailments. This was a man who had cured whole civilizations of horrendous diseases.

“So what happened to you, Chief,” Bashir said. “Your turn to spill the beans.”

“Well, you must have seen Keiko today,” he said, scratching his head. “You could say we’re not getting on.”

“That must be the understatement of the century,” Julian said. 

“Ha bloody ha, Dr Bashir,” Miles responded, signaling the waiter for another beer. “Julian, I made such a huge mistake. I should never, ever have accepted this job.”

“But you’re a great teacher,” Bashir protested. “I’ve watched you over the years with all those young recruits. “

“Aw, it’s not the same as on the station or even on the Enterprise. There’s no challenge in it. I quickly realized that I reveled in everything that Deep Space 9 threw at me. That horrendous mix of technologies might have been a nightmare for some, but looking back at it, it was a treasure chest.”

“But it was your choice to leave,” Julian said, rather puzzled

“I thought it was best for the family. It was what Keiko wanted. She… she wanted to get me away…” His voice trailed off.

“Away from what ? From the station ? I know she was never really happy there…”

“No. Away from you.”

The words seemed to fall into a sudden silence and sit there. Julian blinked, swallowed. “Chief, did you mean what you said just then ?”

Miles took a deep breath. “That’s what I said. She was always jealous of … of our relationship. And since we left – since she left – I’ve come to feel that she might be right. As much as I loved her, and I really did love her, once, I’ve never felt the closeness I did to you.”

Julian reached out to take Miles’ hand, and squeezed it. Miles bit his lip, then grinned. “Come here, you idiot,” he said, pulling Julian towards him and enveloped him in a hug. It felt right. As if the slender figure had been engineering exactly to fit in his arms. He took a deep breath, enjoying the scent of this man he had missed so much.

For a moment, Julian just enjoyed the closeness, the solidity of this man who had been his friend for so long. And then suddenly he straightened up. “Miles, what sort of check-ups has Yoshi had over the years ?”

Taken aback by the change of subject, O’Brien let him go and took a long draught of his drink. “He’s had all the normal childhood examinations, vaccinations. Why ?”

“I was just wondering. Are his doctors fully aware of his… rather unusual gestation?”

Miles scratched his head, looking rather embarrassed. “Well, it must be in his records, I suppose, but I can’t say we’ve emphasized that aspect much. I thought, once he was born, that it wasn’t really of any importance. We’ll always be grateful to Major Kira, of course, but she was just an incubator, wasn’t she ?”

“That’s true,” Julian said. “But Bajoran physiognomy is different. Do you remember, back then, some of the things I explained ? Bajoran women only carry their babies for five months, and so the links between mother and child are much more intricate. The vascularisation – that was why we couldn’t transfer the baby back to Keiko once the danger was over. But with Yoshi being human, I am beginning to wonder if this could have caused a weakness in the skeletal structure. The exchange between mother and child – Miles, this is, as far as I know, the only time such an experiment has taken place. If we’d all remained on the station, I would have checked up on this. But due to the way things happened, no-one has been watching out for any possible consequences. And now he’s reaching puberty, with his bones growing…”

“Yoshi is no experiment !” Miles said, aghast, taking a step backwards.

“I know – that’s not what I meant !” Julian exclaimed, reaching out for the Chief. “I just mean – well, it was the only option, you know it was. And everything went so smoothly, we didn’t… well, I could be totally wrong here. But it’s worth checking up. “

Miles sank back into his chair and sunk his head in his hands. “You’re totally right. And somehow it does make sense. We’ve been blaming Yoshi for being clumsy for months. He’s had so many broken bones. But for an adventurous kid, it seemed normal. Just accidents.” He sighed. “I’m not looking forward to explaining this to Keiko.”

“Perhaps you should leave that to me. But first of all, I need to have a closer look at all the data we took earlier. If I need any more, I can call Yoshi back, make it look like a follow-up, something quite natural.“ He thought for a while, tapping the table with his fingers that seemed, to Miles, quite like old times. “There are some exciting developments with re-sequencers in terms of body structure. If we do find some sub-structural changes, we may be able to use the latest research to redress any lingering instabilities.”

“Could you do that ?” Miles asked. “Julian, you can’t imagine how much that would mean, if you could help. It… might even calm things down between Keiko and myself. Not that we’re likely to get back together, you understand, but if we can stop bickering over the kids, it would be better for all of us. And the worst rows have been because Yoshi hurt himself.” He pulled Julian back towards him and hugged him hard. “Thank you,” he said, with real sincerity. “You can’t imagine how much this means.” 

Julian grinned, sitting back down and taking another sip of his drink. “I’m glad. Holding you – holding you in my arms, just brought me back to the station, and I suddenly remembered the time when Keiko was expecting…. And then everything fell into place, about Yoshi.” He paused, looking rather sad. “Back then, I was so jealous, you know. We’d spent all that time together, while Keiko was on Bajor, and then she came back and everything changed. And Jadzia was falling in love with Worf, and Garak was being all mysterious and Cardassian… “

“I remember. It was a strange time.” Miles shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “I remember moping around our quarters, trying to be useful and a proper family man, driving Keiko absolutely crazy until she kicked me out to the holodeck. And gradually things got back to normal – or as normal as they ever were on DS9.” He sat back, and sighed. “You know, telling you we were leaving, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I should have realised…”

“Realised what ?”

“That it was more than friendship between us, Julian. It was something rare, something special. Keiko, Ezri, the kids, work, it all faded into the background when we were together. I should never, never have given up without a fight.”

Julian looked over at him, his face wary. “Chief, Miles – what are you trying to say to me ?”

Miles shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure. But I know that when you hugged me, it felt as if something fell back into place. As if I was whole again for the first time for many, many months. I don’t want to let you go, this time. I don’t quite know where it will lead us, but would you be willing to see where it takes us ?”

And Bashir grinned, and for a moment the old Julian was back, his eyes shining with excitement and his face open and full of wonder. “Oh, would I just, Miles Edward O’Brien ! I can’t imagine anything I’d like more. And, to tell the truth, I’ve hardly thought of anything else since meeting up with you again.”

Miles grinned. “Liar ! I bet half your brain is already working out the possibly implications of Bajoran gestation on human bone structure !”

Julian blushed. “Well, you have to admit it’s an intriguing possibility.”

“Julian Bashir, if I ever met a more infuriating man in my life… “

“You wouldn’t have me any other way, Chief,” the Doctor said with a smile.

“You know, I think you’re right.” And Miles, for the first time, pulled Bashir into his arms and brought their lips together. 

And, a few very satisfactory moments later, he laughed.

“What is it ?” Julian said, looking slightly askance at the Chief.

“You know, I’ve just discovered something valuable. After all these years, I’ve finally discovered the only way to actually stop you talking !” And, against Julian’s protestations, he showed his respect for proper scientific procedure by testing the principle all over again.

And Julian, unable to dispute the scientific method, kept quiet and enjoyed it.


End file.
